Tag Archives: Spiritual Disciplines

I didn’t know him personally – he was a friend of some friends – but his personal experiment made news in our circles. We were students at a Bible college, after all. And here he was, consciously deciding not to read his Bible.

It wasn’t the “I’ve-slept-through-my-alarm-the-past-ten-mornings” sort of forgetting that most of us fall into when it comes to our Bible reading routines. He wasn’t putting homework ahead of personal devotions like the rest of us were occasionally frequently doing.

He’d realized his Scripture-reading was happening by rote instead of with desire. He was finding his sense of good-standing before God tied to how long he read his Bible each day. A vague standard of number-of-times-per-week was turning his Bible reading into backbreaking drudgery rather than life-giving freedom.

And so he stopped.

I envied him for his bravery. Letting word get out at a Bible college that you were giving up Bible reading as a sort of reverse spiritual discipline was sure to make more than a few people question your salvation.

But more than that, I envied him because I sensed by own lack of bravery. I could not imagine pulling such a stunt and still finding God’s love at the other end.

My experience in many evangelical Christian circles is that we give lip-service to freedom while yanking leashes attached to choke collars, viciously keeping one another in line. It’s more often our fellow believers’ guilt trips, not God’s kindness, that is leading us to repentance. Our mythological ideal Christian isn’t someone who falls harder and harder every day on God’s extravagant grace, but someone who reads only Christian books, attends church every Sunday, and serves without faltering or question.

The fact that we have an “ideal Christian” at all should probably disturb us more than it does.

It’s not that I don’t see wisdom in practicing spiritual disciplines like reading Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and ministry on a regular basis. But doing them for their own sake is a yoke too heavy to bear. Doing them out of obligation to keep your good standing with God will crush you.

The end of his experiment didn’t quite get storied around like the beginning. There were rumors that the break did wonders for his love of Scripture. That giving himself freedom from the imposed standards of “good Christian” actually made his desire for Word and prayer increase.

I never did find the courage to ask. Maybe because I didn’t want to know that the list of rules I was straining to keep (and teaching to others) was meaningless after all. Maybe because I didn’t want to lose the comfort of standards by which to judge myself and others. Maybe because I decided that finding the immoral woman’s passion required just a bit too much risk in leaving my own goodness behind.

And for a long while afterwards, I tried to keep pace with the jerk of the leash while proclaiming myself free.

I caught myself the other day thinking about one of my characters as though he were a real person.

Which either means I’ve reached a breakthrough in my short, unillustrious novel-writing career or I’m having some sort of psychotic break. Possibly both, as it seems many of the world’s most famous writers were also slightly mentally unstable.

What’s even stranger is that while in week one of the National Novel Writing Month, writing roughly 2000 words a day was sheer torture, week two of the novel writing adventure was easier. It became less of a teeth-gritted-butt-in-chair-checking-Facebook-every-fifteen-minutes proposition and more of a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. My allotted two-hours of writing time became something to look forward to instead of something to postpone.

While this is partly an indication of how much I love to write – I think it’s also an example of the power of discipline to sway our affections.

This powerful force of discipline was at work the first time I began to seriously exercise. I started running partly from peer-pressure (all of my friends were runners at the time) and partly from recognizing the direction my body was headed if I didn’t start being more active.

For the first several weeks, it was torture. I probably wouldn’t have lasted beyond them if I didn’t have a regularly scheduled date with a friend to go to the gym. But into the second and third month – I began to actually enjoy myself. I hit the treadmills even when workout buddies had decided to sleep in. The anticipation of the “runner’s high” overcame objections of sleep, busyness, and soreness. Discipline had turned to delight.

I’m reading The Celebration of Discipline by Richard J Foster at the moment. It seems like such an odd title – who ever celebrates discipline? Each chapter centers on one of the spiritual disciplines – silence, confession, prayer, guidance, worship, etc. Some of them I have already learned to love. Some of them I consider skipping the chapter.

Yet in each one, I know there is the possibility of delight. For a while, they will be unpleasant. They will be done only by a gritted-teeth force of will. But slowly, discipline turns to delight. We begin to celebrate the discipline that brings new, good habits into our life. The richness discovered in the practice – of writing, of running, of Scripture, of confession – overrides whatever unpleasantness we had to put up with to discover it.

Maybe it was because I’ve been surrounded by Muslim and Hindu friends whose lives are often ordered around their fasts. Maybe it was because I knew I was struggling emotionally and spiritually and needed something to shake me up. Whatever the reason, as this Lent approached, I felt like I needed to participate. To fast from something.

I decided to give up chips, soda and chocolate bars. It didn’t sound that spiritual to me. It seemed like a very body-focused Lenten fast… was I in this thing just to lose a few of the winter pounds? Not eating chips wasn’t going to free up a whole lot of extra free time in which to tackle one of the devotional books blogs and articles about Lent were recommending.

We don’t usually consider food a matter of spiritual focus. Especially as an American – I find it very easy to disconnect normal body activities like eating, sleeping and exercise from my spiritual life. But now in the middle of my forty days without chips and chocolate, I’m finding my spiritual life is just as happy about the fast as my physical body.

Since the chip bags here are just a little bigger than the “single serving size” you get at US picnics, eating a bag or two a week didn’t feel like such a big deal to me. Wouldn’t I normally eat that much with a sandwich at home?

Except that I wasn’t eating them with a sandwich. I was buying a bag at two in the afternoon. It was emotional eating.

Stressful day? Stop by the little old man’s store on the way home to bury your sorrows in a bag of “American Sour Cream & Onion” chips (which, actually, taste nothing like the American version…).

Long week? Better your mood with a Cadbury’s almond chocolate bar. (Aren’t there endorphins or something in chocolate?)

8pm and already exhausted from the three different guests that dropped by the house in addition to your two Hindi classes? Stay awake a bit longer to watch a comedy with your roommate with a bottle of Sprite.

When I gave up those three crutches for Lent, it forced me to find better ways to deal. Stressed? Pray, journal and read Scripture. Long week? Become more serious about taking a Sabbath rest and using it well. Exhausted? (Novel idea!) Go to bed!

It’s in these simple, physical changes that I’ve met God. I’m actually awake for my devotion time in the morning. I’m in a better mood more often. I’m actually happy now when a guest stops by unexpectedly.

And all this from trading chips for a journal, chocolate for a Sabbath rest and Sprite for an early bedtime?